


The Eiji Files

by SEMellark



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Polyamory, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22331698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SEMellark/pseuds/SEMellark
Summary: It was Shorter’s idea, as most things usually are. Something about exposure therapy. If they catalogue every debilitating thing Eiji does and keep the evidence in one place, eventually they’ll grow desensitized, right?
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji/Shorter Wong, Ash Lynx/Shorter Wong, Okumura Eiji/Shorter Wong
Comments: 13
Kudos: 301





	The Eiji Files

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marcoandthebodts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcoandthebodts/gifts).



> It's 2020, and we still miss them

There’s a notification on Ash’s phone telling him that Shorter uploaded a photo to their shared iCloud album.

And Ash _knows_ he shouldn’t open it. He’s supposed to be studying, and he’s with fucking Yut-Lung of all people. Whatever Shorter just posted will be nothing short of life ruining, Ash knows, and he’d rather be somewhere private when he sees it.

But in the end, curiosity and his fierce love for his boyfriends makes Ash take the plunge. His eyes dart up to Yut-Lung quickly before he swipes open his phone.

Ash is greeted with a picture of Eiji, eyes closed, clearly passed out and drooling against what looks to be Shorter’s chest.

The caption below the photo reads, _H E L P I have to pee but i’d honestly rather die than move him_

Ash both loathes and welcomes the fluttery sensation in his chest.

“ _Stop it_.” From across the table, Yut-Lung eyes Ash with suspicion. They’ve mostly ignored one another the entire time they’ve been in the library, but trust him to sniff out exactly when Ash doesn’t want his attention. “That’s your Eiji face. I hate that you do that when he’s not even around.”

Ash rolls his eyes and pockets his phone, albeit reluctantly. “I don’t have an Eiji face.”

“That’s cute,” Yut-Lung says, so obviously condescending that Ash wants to lean forward and snap his laptop shut over his fingers. “As if you’re not obvious. I don’t even know why I hang out with you or Shorter anymore.”

“Because your personality sucks and you have no other friends.”

“One of these days, Ash,” Yut-Lung says lowly, but he leaves it at that, going back to his furious typing.

Ash isn’t too concerned.

…

Things were fine before the three of them started living together. Eiji was manageable levels of cute, tempered mostly by his suspicion of Ash and Shorter’s joint pursuit of him. It took a while for Eiji to get what they were insinuating, and even then, it took a solid punch to Ash’s jaw for all of them to get their shit together.

(And where would Eiji even get the idea that Ash would _cheat_ on Shorter anyway? As if Shorter hadn’t _also_ been trying to woo Eiji since they met him at that seedy bar? If anything, their infatuation with him brought Ash and Shorter closer as a couple, uniting them under a singular goal. But Ash would be lying if he said Eiji getting upset in Shorter’s defense hadn’t been hot; he knows Shorter agrees with him.)

But it got worse when Eiji agreed to date the two of them, and worse _still_ when he moved in. Because Eiji with his guard down? Fresh out of the shower with a towel around his hips, or standing at the stove dressed in one of Shorter’s hoodies that’s two sizes too big on him?

Ash and Shorter are going to die before graduation at this rate.

The two of them are of a similar mind that they’re the only people in the world who experience this kind of suffering. That’s why the iCloud album exists, as a sort of support group for the various _feelings_ Eiji Okumura incites in them.

It was Shorter’s idea, as most things usually are. Something about exposure therapy. If they catalogue every debilitating thing Eiji does and keep the evidence in one place, eventually they’ll grow desensitized, right?

Ash thinks it’s probably bullshit, because he’s never stopped being awed by Shorter in all the years they’ve known one another, and he has a suspicion it’ll be the same with Eiji. But he wasn’t about to shut down this admittedly convenient idea – he needs to save face around Eiji for at least a little while, he can’t be turning to goo every time Eiji makes a cute face or mutters to himself in Japanese while he looks through concept photos.

And so “The Eiji Files” was born.

Ash still thinks they should’ve come up with a more discreet name for it. What if Eiji sees the notifications on their phones? Despite his candid nature, Eiji is a difficult guy to pin down. His moods fluctuate, and he finds humor in the strangest things. Is this something he’ll find hilarious, or totally creepy?

Shorter thinks it’s worth the risk. Ash is still weighing his options, but that doesn’t mean he won’t participate in the meantime.

…

Ash doesn’t know why he enrolled in an 8am class. He’s never been a morning person and has, in fact, been told on more than one occasion that he's horrible to deal with before noon.

Shorter wakes up everyday at six to go on a run and has since they were in high school, but Ash never really felt the need to adjust his own schedule around that. They’re in college now, though, with different classes and work schedules, not to mention Eiji’s addition to their lives.

It took a few weeks of Ash waking up to an empty apartment for him to realize that he _hated_ missing out on mornings with his boyfriends. The time they could spend together was becoming sparse as they advanced in their degrees, and Ash resolved to take his budding loneliness into his own hands. He would fix his inability to be a functioning human in the morning or die trying.

Except 8am classes absolutely suck ass. Taking a literature course as a biochemical engineering major makes Ash want to rip his hair out most days, but it’s _worse_ in the morning.

They’ve been going over American Lit for weeks now, and Ash can barely keep his thoughts about Ernest Hemingway and his stiff and stale fucking writing style to himself. _A Farewell to Arms_ was the worst book he’s ever read in his life, and the girl sitting in front of him who keeps going on and on about how _thoughtful_ and _pragmatic_ it was is probably the most pretentious person Ash has ever met save Yut-Lung.

The only thing keeping him from popping off is the memory of kissing Shorter goodbye before his run and getting to cuddle an extra half hour with Eiji before Ash had to leave for class. _I’m doing it for them_ , Ash has to keep telling himself, or else he’ll go insane.

When his phone buzzes in his pocket, Ash pulls it out without a second thought. It’s Shorter again, uploading to the album, and Ash hesitates for all of five seconds before opening his phone.

Ash reads, _Just got home, lookie what I fooouuuund,_ before he’s slapped in the face with a picture of Eiji doing yoga (probably) in the living room, bent forward with his hands pressed flat to the carpet.

“Oh, my God,” Ash says out loud, and the room goes silent.

“Mister Lynx?” the professor says at length. She quirks an eyebrow at him, leafing through the copy of _A Farewell to Arms_ in her hand. “Do you disagree that Catherine and Henry were actually in love with one another?

“I don’t know,” Ash says, because all he can think about is how Eiji’s ass looked in his joggers. “I think Catherine should’ve just gotten with one of the other nurses or something.”

“What about Catherine makes you think she’s a lesbian?” The girl in front of him twists around to shoot him an incredulous glare. “There’s nothing in the text that supports that.”

“Oh, yeah, because Henry’s the _epitome_ of a reliable narrator,” Ash replies, and he absolutely hates himself for the debate he incites.

He fucking hates this class. He just wants to ogle his boyfriend’s early morning yoga poses in peace.

…

Ash has Friday afternoons mostly to himself since he only has the one class at 8am. He spends them asleep, since Shorter works at the diner until closing and Eiji’s usually doing projects in the photography lab. Sometimes Eiji comes home for lunch, jumping into bed with Ash and pulling at his clothes until he agrees to go with him to whatever café he’s fallen in love with for the month.

When Ash gets home that day, he isn’t expecting to see Eiji’s sneakers by the door. “Eiji?” he calls, shrugging off his coat and hanging it up on the hook next to Eiji’s. “You here?”

“Bathroom,” Eiji’s voice carries as Ash makes his way over to the couch and throws himself onto it. “How was class?”

“Boring,” Ash replies. “Stupid. We finally moved on from Hemingway, but now we’re reading _The Grapes of Wrath_. I wanna rip my hair out.”

Eiji laughs, entirely unsympathetic, but Eiji was the only reason Ash finished _A Farewell to Arms_ in the first place. He learned pretty early on that Ash is easy to motivate under the right circumstances, and he developed a reward system for every chapter Ash finished.

“What, do I get a piece of chocolate?” Ash had asked. Looking back, he’d been _so_ naïve. He’d underestimated how evil Eiji could be. "A pat on the head?"

Eiji had just smiled, chin in his hand as he watched Ash leaf through the book with a scowl on his face. “You can have a kiss for the first few chapters,” he replied, and Ash had stilled so suddenly Shorter almost choked on the ramen Eiji made for them. “We can get more creative as you go.”

“How creative are we talking?” Ash prodded, trying and failing to sound smooth, unbothered, impenetrable, as if he and Shorter hadn’t had “The Eiji Files” for three months at that point.

Eiji hummed, rubbing Shorter’s back as he choked and laughed in intermittent bursts. “I don’t know, Ash. You’ll have to read and see.”

Absolutely nothing about the way Hemingway told his story was sexy, but Ash found himself in a specific type of _mood_ every time he picked it up, hyperaware of where Eiji was in the apartment. The problem therein was that Ash remembered almost nothing of what he read, too focused on his pending rewards, but whatever. Ash’s job was just to read the damn thing, not absorb every detail about each mountain or hospital described.

Ash will read a thousand terrible books if it means he’ll get Eiji’s undivided attention at the end of it. He’s almost looking forward to starting the process over again, thinks back to all the photos Shorter posted in “The Eiji Files” the night Ash finished _A Farewell to Arms._

That’s the moment Eiji walks into the room, the look on his face giving Ash pause. “Aslan,” Eiji says, and _oh,_ oh shit, Ash is instantly as turned on as he is terrified. Eiji only uses his birth name under extremely specific circumstances. Ash’s response to it is Pavlovian at this point. “Do you know what Yut-Lung told me earlier?”

“He’s a snake, and you shouldn’t believe anything he says,” Ash replies, feeling particularly jumpy as he stares at Eiji from the couch. He can guess what Eiji’s talking about, because Yut-Lung _is_ a snake, and there’s only one thing he could possibly tell Eiji that he knows would put Ash and Shorter in hot water.

Eiji seems unimpressed as he walks over to the couch, and Ash sucks in a breath and holds it as his boyfriend straddles his lap with clear purpose. “He said,” Eiji says slowly, “that you and Shorter have a super-secret album _full_ of pictures of me. Is that true?”

“It’s not so secret if he knew about it,” Ash mumbles, wondering how Yut-Lung figured this one out. He’s creepily observant, so this should come as no real surprise.

Eiji sighs one of his tolerant yet disappointed sighs and fixes Ash with a long look. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

“Yes,” Ash says without thinking. “I mean, probably. Um, it was Shorter’s idea?”

 _You fucking nark,_ a voice in Ash’s head that sounds suspiciously like Shorter says. Eiji shakes his head and sits back on Ash’s thighs, crossing his arms over his chest. He clearly just woke up from a nap a little bit ago, with his hair a rumpled mess and creases from their pillows on his face. He’s wearing that faded, purple sweater with the stretched out collar that drives Ash absolutely insane, and he makes a conscious effort not to stare too much at the pale jut of Eiji’s exposed collarbone.

“What am I going to do with you two?” Eiji asks, tilting his head to one side. “Secrets aren’t good for relationships, you know.”

Ash decides to take an enormous gamble and grabs Eiji by the hips to gently tug him forward. He purposefully hoods his eyes before replying, “We didn’t do it to make you mad. We just… love you so much, you know? We wanted to put it all in one place.”

“That’s nice,” Eiji says cheerfully, and Ash knows they’re toast.

…

Half an hour later, Eiji uploads to the album from Ash’s phone.

In the photo, Ash’s face is dusted red, and he’s not looking at the camera as he holds up a piece of printer paper that reads, _I take creepy pictures of my boyfriend when he’s sleeping_

**Shorter Wong is typing…**

**Shorter Wong: lol oops**

…

“Eiji actually suggested an album for pictures of all three of us, you know. Nice job, man, your evil scheme really backfired on you this time.”

“I thought it would work,” Yut-Lung groans, face buried deep in his hands. “Of course you two found the one person who’s just as creepy and insane as you are.”

Shorter laughs, throwing an arm around Ash’s shoulders and tugging him closer on their shared seat in the booth. Ash goes where he’s ushered, keeping a smug grin firmly in place as Yut-Lung glares at him through his fingers. “I don’t know where you got this idea that Eiji’s some square,” Shorter says. “He was really only happy when you snitched because he loves making fun of us.”

“It’s a sick enjoyment,” Ash grumbles. “And he does it to me more than you.”

“Babe, c’mon, you’re scared of fucking pumpkins, what is Eiji supposed to do with that?”

“Love and support me like a normal boyfriend?”

Shorter pinches his cheek, and Ash swats his hand away. Yut-Lung looks at them with some mixture of disgust and frustration, but Ash can see some of the fight leaving his eyes. For all he complains, the guy still hangs out with them, so he can’t be all that bothered by their antics.

“You three are the worst,” Yut-Lung says eventually, propping himself up with an elbow against the table as he glares out the window. “And what have I told you about wearing your sunglasses indoors, Shorter, you look like an absolute tool.”

“This absolute tool gets laid twice as much as you so… ” Shorter shrugs. “I think I’m good.”

Yut-Lung looks like he’s about to start throwing things, but there’s a certain telltale click and shudder before things can really pop off.

Ash and Shorter turn just as Eiji is lowering his sleek, black camera. They hadn’t even noticed him walking into the cafe. The smile on his face is blinding, and Ash can feel his own melting heart mirrored in the way Shorter slumps against him.

“Sorry,” says Eiji, “it’s for my personal collection.”


End file.
